EPA tentatively agrees to pesticide use restrictions near Bay Area endangered species habitathttp://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1246809362
The Environmental Protection Agency last week announced its tentative settlement agreement to temporarily ban in eight Bay Area counties the use of 74 pesticides in habitat set aside for 11 imperiled species.
The agency also agreed to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rigorously assess any risks posed by these pesticides to the endangered or threatened species.
That latter step will clear up uncertainty over the effects of these powerful chemicals on animal species deemed near the brink of survival, said Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco, a nonprofit that filed a 2007 lawsuit leading to the settlement.
"The end game is to get them to actually conduct the assessments of what the actual effects are," Miller said.